Hence the need for understanding their views and how they leverage IO operations. When you are short manpower, intel is a good substitute.

plus there is the added benefit of their outrageous opinions keeping me conservative on most issues. When I read things like Fox and Drudge the Washington Times it makes me question those beliefs.

But IDK where you are going with this "God shaped hole" thing. There are plenty of people who get along fine with no Christian God in their lives, thank you. And happen to be conservative.

There also are a ton of people all up in Christ's business who are liberal as fuck. Ever talk to a Quaker?

Yes, but all the intel in the world means nothing if you do not have the power to act upon it. The Cassandra Curse. Actually, it would suck being hyperaware of just how screwed you are and unable to change anything.

Re: God shaped hole. I'm simply saying that human beings seem to have a need for faith in some higher power. A deity, ideology(communism) or a person(POTUS). Very few people are objectively rational about their belief structure, the people who truly believe in science is probably closest and there's lots of fanatical nutbags even there; ie environmentalists/climate changers.

And it's these people who are often most resistant to changing their opinion. Has nothing to do with right/left ideology, just fervency of belief. S/F....Ken M

__________________"If you remember nothing else about what I’m about to consider here, remember this: the one and only reason politicians, bureaucrats, and policemen want to take your weapons away from you is so that they can do things to you that they couldn’t do if you still had your weapons."— L. Neil Smith

You need to be reading that shit. I read it every day, along with Salon, Mother Jones and Slate.

Do you want to not know what they are propagandizing?

Should we just all stick our fingers in our ears and go Lalalalalala I can't hear you over how awesome fox news is Lalalalala

I don't need to hear my own views parroted back at me in an inarticulate and ponderous manner, making me question why I have those views (Fox). I want to hear the views of people I don't agree with, so I can formulate counter arguments and strategies. Plus every now and again, believe it or not, liberals do come up with a good point. For instance, they've always squawked about police brutality- only recently have we woken up to its hideous reality.

To make another point- at Robin Sage, you don't get classes on what the fuck General Petraeus thinks. You get classes on what Mao and Che Guevara thought. Because to destroy your enemy you must understand him, even empathize with him.

This sounds like the definition of a politician. Have to be honest with you Sigaba, most military people have a deep rooted disdain for politicians. Why? Mainly because they lie.

Like this?

Quote:

By Jennifer Pompi - The Washington Times - Thursday, September 4, 2014

Under President Obama, the richest 10 percent were the only income group of Americans to see their median incomes rise, according to a survey released this week by the Federal Reserve.

The Fed data covered the years 2010-2013, during which period Mr. Obama constantly campaigned against income inequality and won re-election by painting his Republican rival as a tool of Wall Street plutocrats.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the stupid masses love lying politicians like a nymphomaniac loves sitting on Pinocchio's face screaming, "Now lie, MF'er, lie GOOD!"

__________________“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” ~Patrick Henry

"Elites" in the sense that they can shape narratives, debates, and policies to a greater extent than John Q. Public or even Gladys Kravitz. This elite status is due to their skill set, their proximity to centers of power, their understanding of the rules of the game, and the (greatly diminished) social prestige of their profession.

LOL, according to the Libs/Dems/Left/Progressives the Koch brothers are hate-mongering, racist, evil Conservatives who spend their own money supporting/promoting their hate-mongering, racist evil Conservatism.

Now they are donating some of that hate-mongering, racist, evil Conservative money to the United Negro College Fund.

This time we have the Brookings Institution (old school Liberal Think Tank) selling itself out via research and access to Obama Admin officials.

Some scholars say the donations have led to implicit agreements that the research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments.

“If a member of Congress is using the Brookings reports, they should be aware — they are not getting the full story,” said Saleem Ali, who served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar and who said he had been told during his job interview that he could not take positions critical of the Qatari government in papers. “They may not be getting a false story, but they are not getting the full story.”

By ERIC LIPTON, BROOKE WILLIAMS and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
c.2014 New York Times News Service

WASHINGTON — The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a U.S. foreign aid program.

But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.

It was the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and scholarship.

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing U.S. government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.

Nothing to see here at the EPA, move along. We at the EPA will tell you common-folk what to think about the environment. If we say there's Global Warming, no matter the evidence, there's Global Warming.....

Emails between top Environmental Protection Agency officials reveal they saw their fight against global warming as putting them at “forefront of progressive national policy.”

“You are at the forefront of progressive national policy on one of the critical issues of our time. Do you realize that?” former EPA chief Lisa Jackson asked former EPA policy office head Lisa Heinzerling in a Feb. 27, 2009 email.

“You’re a good boss. I do realize that. I pinch myself all the time,” Heinzerling replied that same day to Jackson, who was using an alias email account under the fake name “Richard Windsor.”

These emails, which were part of a batch obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, show what top EPA officials were thinking as the agency prepared to release its greenhouse gas endangerment finding. which would give the agency the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes and, eventually, from power plants.

“Our laws don’t always shine to being used as pretenses for ideological agendas; this is plainly in the name of climate, but Obama has said it is to finally make renewables profitable,” Horner added.

Indeed, EPA rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions will have little to no impact on global warming since developing countries, like China and India, will continue emitting, thus negating any actions taken in the U.S.

President Barack Obama and the EPA have also sold recent greenhouse gas emission limits on power plants as being necessary to promote green energy and essential for social justice.

“The great thing about this proposal is that it really is an investment opportunity,” current EPA chief Gina McCarthy told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in July. ”This is not about pollution control.”

“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” McCarthy told environmentalists on a phone conference in August. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”

Heinzerling played an integral role in convincing the Supreme Court in 2007, which said the EPA could regulate greenhouse gas emissions if they represent a threat to public health and welfare. The EPA made this determination less than one year after Obama took office.

“Our auto task force subgroup meeting went very well. The purpose of the meeting was to hear from EPA and DOT [Department of Transportation] on our plans for mobile sources,” Heinzerling wrote to Jackson on Feb. 27, 2009 — about 10 months before the EPA released its endangerment finding.

The first source the EPA sought to regulate was greenhouse gases from vehicle tailpipe emissions, a rule which was finalized in May 2010 and forced light-duty vehicles to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2011, the EPA clamped down on emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

Apparently, these mobile source rules were only the beginning of a “progressive national policy” by the Obama administration. But Heinzerling would not be in the administration to help see it through, as she left the EPA in at the end of 2010 to return to Georgetown University as a law professor, according to Politico.

After emissions from mobile sources were regulated, they began to focus on greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources, especially power plants. In 2013, the EPA issued its first-ever greenhouse gas emissions rules for new power plants. The rules have been criticized for harming the coal industry.

The EPA’s new power plant rule sets greenhouse gas emissions limits so low that even the most efficient coal-fired power plant cannot meet the standard on its own. To come into compliance, new coal plants would have to install carbon capture and storage technology, but such equipment is not a commercially proven technology.

This past summer, the EPA doubled down on its power plant regulating binge and proposed greenhouse gas emissions limits for power plants already in operation. The rule has been extremely controversial, with opponents saying it will raise electricity prices and force more power plants to shut down.

“The EPA’s war on coal has troubling economic implications for every American and U.S. business,” wrote Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly in The Wall Street Journal. “As the new regulations take effect, Americans could see their electric bills increase annually by more than 10 percent — $150 for the average consumer — by the end of the decade.”

Environmentalists and the Obama administration say the rules will improve public health and prove the U.S. is serious about fighting global warming.

Nothing to see here at the EPA, move along. We at the EPA will tell you common-folk what to think about the environment. If we say there's Global Warming, no matter the evidence, there's Global Warming.....

Emails between top Environmental Protection Agency officials reveal they saw their fight against global warming as putting them at “forefront of progressive national policy.”

“You are at the forefront of progressive national policy on one of the critical issues of our time. Do you realize that?” former EPA chief Lisa Jackson asked former EPA policy office head Lisa Heinzerling in a Feb. 27, 2009 email.

“You’re a good boss. I do realize that. I pinch myself all the time,” Heinzerling replied that same day to Jackson, who was using an alias email account under the fake name “Richard Windsor.”

These emails, which were part of a batch obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, show what top EPA officials were thinking as the agency prepared to release its greenhouse gas endangerment finding. which would give the agency the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes and, eventually, from power plants.

“Our laws don’t always shine to being used as pretenses for ideological agendas; this is plainly in the name of climate, but Obama has said it is to finally make renewables profitable,” Horner added.

Indeed, EPA rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions will have little to no impact on global warming since developing countries, like China and India, will continue emitting, thus negating any actions taken in the U.S.

President Barack Obama and the EPA have also sold recent greenhouse gas emission limits on power plants as being necessary to promote green energy and essential for social justice.

“The great thing about this proposal is that it really is an investment opportunity,” current EPA chief Gina McCarthy told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in July. ”This is not about pollution control.”

“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” McCarthy told environmentalists on a phone conference in August. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”

Heinzerling played an integral role in convincing the Supreme Court in 2007, which said the EPA could regulate greenhouse gas emissions if they represent a threat to public health and welfare. The EPA made this determination less than one year after Obama took office.

“Our auto task force subgroup meeting went very well. The purpose of the meeting was to hear from EPA and DOT [Department of Transportation] on our plans for mobile sources,” Heinzerling wrote to Jackson on Feb. 27, 2009 — about 10 months before the EPA released its endangerment finding.

The first source the EPA sought to regulate was greenhouse gases from vehicle tailpipe emissions, a rule which was finalized in May 2010 and forced light-duty vehicles to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2011, the EPA clamped down on emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

Apparently, these mobile source rules were only the beginning of a “progressive national policy” by the Obama administration. But Heinzerling would not be in the administration to help see it through, as she left the EPA in at the end of 2010 to return to Georgetown University as a law professor, according to Politico.

After emissions from mobile sources were regulated, they began to focus on greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources, especially power plants. In 2013, the EPA issued its first-ever greenhouse gas emissions rules for new power plants. The rules have been criticized for harming the coal industry.

The EPA’s new power plant rule sets greenhouse gas emissions limits so low that even the most efficient coal-fired power plant cannot meet the standard on its own. To come into compliance, new coal plants would have to install carbon capture and storage technology, but such equipment is not a commercially proven technology.

This past summer, the EPA doubled down on its power plant regulating binge and proposed greenhouse gas emissions limits for power plants already in operation. The rule has been extremely controversial, with opponents saying it will raise electricity prices and force more power plants to shut down.

“The EPA’s war on coal has troubling economic implications for every American and U.S. business,” wrote Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Mike Kelly in The Wall Street Journal. “As the new regulations take effect, Americans could see their electric bills increase annually by more than 10 percent — $150 for the average consumer — by the end of the decade.”

Environmentalists and the Obama administration say the rules will improve public health and prove the U.S. is serious about fighting global warming.

All part of Cloward/Priven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty". Cloward and Piven were a married couple who were both professors at the Columbia University School of Social Work. The strategy was formulated in a May 1966 article in the liberal[1] magazine The Nation titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty".[2]

The two stated that many Americans who were eligible for welfare were not receiving benefits, and that a welfare enrollment drive would strain local budgets, precipitating a crisis at the state and local levels that would be a wake-up call for the federal government, particularly the Democratic Party. There would also be side consequences of this strategy, according to Cloward and Piven. These would include: easing the plight of the poor in the short-term (through their participation in the welfare system); shoring up support for the national Democratic Party-then splintered by pluralistic interests (through its cultivation of poor and minority constituencies by implementing a national "solution" to poverty); and relieving local governments of the financially and politically onerous burdens of public welfare (through a national "solution" to poverty)

College students can earn academic credit for promoting socialist causes on their campuses through a program run by the Young Democratic Socialists, a situation that has prompted concern among conservative and libertarian college students who do not receive credit for similar measures.

The Young Democratic Socialists work with administrators to help their campus student leaders secure academic credit, but declined to The College Fix to say which campuses have made such arrangements through the program.

“We do not have a standing list of schools which provide credit, rather, if a student expresses interest, we work with them to find out if their school would do so,” DSA National Director Maria Svart told The College Fix in an email.

“As you may be aware,” she added, “many schools have programs where a student finds an internship with a non-profit, for-profit, or advocacy organization and is supervised by an academic adviser. Our internship program helps develop a student’s leadership skills, such as critical thinking, writing, public speaking and project management.”

But this arrangement prompted controversy recently at the University of Southern California, where an undergraduate adviser sent students word of the opportunity via the official political science department listserv.

“Sick of politics as usual? Questioning capitalism? You are not alone! … We are currently looking for young, motivated democratic socialists to organize and lead active Young Democratic Socialists chapters at their colleges and universities,” the email stated.

The position was not described in the announcement as an internship, yet academic credit for the role was offered “for eligible students.”

“Anyone else appalled that you can get USC-approved credit for an internship with the ‘Young Democratic Socialists?’” posted Alex Kludjian, a board member of USC College Republicans, on Facebook. In an email to The College Fix, he added it’s biased and absurd.

“Due to the overwhelming amount of Democrats in (Los Angeles) … it is not unusual to have more opportunities with liberal-leaning organizations,” Kludjian told The College Fix. “However, what is reprehensible is the fact that one could receive USC academic credit for a position that seemingly matches the work we as members of CRs or YAL do every day as volunteers.”

Kludjian refers to the College Republicans and Young Americans for Liberty, campus groups that promote causes of a different bent that run counter to socialist ones.

After a media inquiry was made to campus officials by The College Fix, the post was taken off the listserv. USC’s Vice Dean for Academic Program Dr. Steven Lamy, in an email to The College Fix, said that opportunity “was posted by an advisor in Political Science without permission or vetting by anyone in the department.”

“The post has been taken down,” he said. “At no time did a political science professor approve this position for academic credit. We do not give credit for external activities unless they are approved by a department and are supervised by a USC professor. I have instructed the political science department to vet all postings in the future.”

Academic credit offered through the Young Democratic Socialists is doled out to students who complete the following: begin a chapter at their school with at least two “officials”; participate in all monthly YDS leaders check-ins on Google Hangout; complete required readings with short summaries; organize and document at least one political/educational event during the span of the semester/year; and write and submit two articles to The Activistblog, according to the group’s website.

“As a YDS Leader, you will work alongside Young Democratic Socialists leaders and staff to develop skills in student leadership and learn the fundamental basics of community organizing,” according to the email sent to USC students. “You will make connections with fellow, like-minded DSA/YDS members from across the nation who share your ideals and vision of a society that puts people over profit.”

“This is literally what I already do for Students for Liberty as a campus coordinator,” USC student Jayel Aheram said on Facebook. “I didn’t know I can get academic credit for this.”

In an email to The College Fix, Aheram said he is not surprised by the socialist tactics.

“Young Democratic Socialists attempting to recruit interns for unpaid positions is the height of hypocrisy,” Aheram said. “You have to remember, these folks are the ones agitating for minimum wage and they can’t even give their own workers that?”

Both the Democratic Socialist of America – YDS’ parent organization – and comrade-ette Betsy Avila, “Youth Organizer” responsible for Southern California, did not respond to emails from The College Fix asking for further details of the YDS campus leader position and why it’s worthy of academic credit.

Aheram, president of the USC Young Americans for Liberty chapter, said it’s noteworthy that conservative and libertarian groups thrive without such perks.

“YDS needing to bribe people with academic credit to get willing members while groups like USC College Republicans and Young Americans for Liberty are able to recruit committed activists without bribing them with academic credit is pretty telling,” Aheram said. “In the free market of ideas, students are attracted to groups like YAL and CR without the perverse incentives of academic credit.”

I'd imagine most universities Political Science departments allow this- regardless of ideology. I know my school does. My department head forwards about 2-3 emails a week with offers for credit if the student completes an internship over a semester. They come from all areas on the political spectrum.

College's love it because they get the tuition and fees for however many credit hours the student signs up for, and all they have to do is assign a teacher to "supervise" the course. I did an internship over the summer and I had to keep an online journal weekly and write an essay at the beginning and the end and make a storyboard for the hallway. It was all done via email, and my professor was even out of the country on vacation while I was doing my internship. Colleges love collecting easy money these internships provide.

As for the perceived bias in this...when the college Republicans are done crying about this, they can go to their local Tea Party office, arrange for an internship, then have the organization agree with the university for credit hours.

As for the perceived bias in this...when the college Republicans are done crying about this, they can go to their local Tea Party office, arrange for an internship, then have the organization agree with the university for credit hours.

I think it's great too, how else are these young minds going to find out about the good/bad of the various ideologies. In the 1970s I had to take a mandatory Americanism verses Communism course in high school. But the reality of the college administration staff's mindset is typically anti-conservative. Like this:

Remember when Condoleezza Rice drew protests from the faculty and student body of Rutgers University when they heard she would be their commencement speaker? Why? According to the Rutgers staff, her politics were outside of “mainstream beliefs”! LOL.

I'd imagine most universities Political Science departments allow this- regardless of ideology. I know my school does. My department head forwards about 2-3 emails a week with offers for credit if the student completes an internship over a semester. They come from all areas on the political spectrum.

College's love it because they get the tuition and fees for however many credit hours the student signs up for, and all they have to do is assign a teacher to "supervise" the course. I did an internship over the summer and I had to keep an online journal weekly and write an essay at the beginning and the end and make a storyboard for the hallway. It was all done via email, and my professor was even out of the country on vacation while I was doing my internship. Colleges love collecting easy money these internships provide.

As for the perceived bias in this...when the college Republicans are done crying about this, they can go to their local Tea Party office, arrange for an internship, then have the organization agree with the university for credit hours.

There definitely is an agenda. Not totally progressive but nonetheless an agenda. You and I are not key players in it.

We are all players in it when the press (that is supposedly free to report) is forbidden to report on the MOST transparent administration in history (who said that history majors?). Seems that the POTUS's wife don't like the press, so she had to stop them recently:

Even though Barack Obama rode into office in 2008 on a wave of media adulation, the Obama administration has exhibited a fiercely hostile attitude towards reporters. It has vigorously prosecuted low-level national-security leakers — while it ignores friendly leakers from the White House who puff up its image. This has led former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie to observe, “In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press.” Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists concluded that Obama “will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom.”

The White House’s contempt for the news-gathering process extends to the most petty incidents. On Monday, Michelle Obama came to Milwaukee to campaign for Democrat Mary Burke, who is challenging Governor Scott Walker. To the astonishment of reporter Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, aides to Obama and Burke told her she could not talk to the crowd at a Burke event in Milwaukee.

The Amherst-Pelham Regional School District, which recently subjected middle school students to a social justice assembly that left children sobbing and traumatized, penned a 63 page document in 2008 detailing their intent to socially transform America, via your children.

The document, titled Social Justice Commitment, clearly outlines Amherst-Pelham’s fervent dedication to an all-encompassing and radically progressive social justice curriculum.

Houston drops subpoenas to get speeches from pastors opposed to anti-discrimination ordinance

HOUSTON – Houston city attorneys have withdrawn subpoenas that sought speeches and other information from five pastors who publicly opposed an ordinance banning discrimination of gay and transgender residents, the mayor said Wednesday.

Mayor Annise Parker said the subpoenas, which the city pursued after opponents filed a lawsuit seeking a vote on repealing the ordinance, inadvertently created a national debate about freedom of religion. The pastors, who aren't plaintiffs but support repeal efforts, argued that their sermons, presentations and other material were protected under the First Amendment.

"I always supported the right of clergy to say what they want even if I disagree with them," Parker said. "It was never our intention to interfere with any members of the clergy and their congregants in terms of sermons, in terms of preaching what they believe is the word of the God that they serve. ... My whole purpose is to defend a strong and wonderful and appropriate city ordinance against local attack."